Two sisters, aged four and six, died after allegedly inhaling toxic fumes from pesticide-treated chickpeas stored inside their home in Maharashtra’s Nanded district, officials said, reported the PTI.
The incident took place in Balapur village, where the family had stored chickpeas mixed with pesticide to protect them from insects.
The victims have been identified as Arohi Debekar (6) and Aradhya Debekar (4), officials said.
According to family members, the family slept in a room where the pesticide-treated chickpeas had been stored. As the doors and windows were reportedly closed, toxic fumes are suspected to have accumulated inside the room, as per the PTI.
Parents also fell ill
Officials said the children and their parents began vomiting during the night. While the parents survived, the two girls are believed to have suffered severe poisoning and were found dead on Thursday morning, the news agency reported.
The exact cause of death has not yet been confirmed.
Probe underway
According to the PTI, the officials said that the efforts are underway to determine whether the deaths were caused by exposure to pesticide fumes or another factor. The incident is being investigated, and officials are awaiting further findings.
The last rites of the two sisters were performed on Thursday in the presence of a large number of villagers.
Snake rescuer’s daughter dies after spectacled cobra bite
Meanwhile, in an another incident, an eight-year-old girl, Shravani Akshay Mandal, died after being bitten by an Indian spectacled cobra while lying on a mattress with her sister at their home in Varkunti village in Palghar district on Sunday afternoon. The snake bit the child through a bedsheet while the girls were watching videos on a mobile phone.
Her elder sister Aaradhya, 9, was unharmed. The girl’s father, a snake rescuer, clarified that he hadn’t been catching snakes for the past six months, and that the snake involved was not one he had caught and kept for later release.
Several Instagram accounts and social media pages feature videos of young children handling venomous and non-venomous snakes, often seemingly for likes, views, and social media engagement.
Experts and those working in the field of snake conservation have repeatedly urged people to report such accounts and called on the forest department to take appropriate action. They warned that such videos often promote unsafe snake-handling practices and can encourage others to imitate them, potentially putting both humans and snakes at serious risk.
(with PTI inputs)
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